


To Concede

by Lasenby_Heathcote, WinchesterNovak



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Age of Ultron, Amnesia, Angst, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America Reverse Big Bang 2017, Dream Sequence, F/M, First Kiss, Flashbacks, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Skinny Steve Rogers, So much angst, Sort of? - Freeform, Violence, gory depictions of Bucky's arm, in one sequence, slight canon divergence in the opening fight scene, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-10 07:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11122638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasenby_Heathcote/pseuds/Lasenby_Heathcote, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterNovak/pseuds/WinchesterNovak
Summary: To concede;i. To grant as a right or privilegeii. To yield or surrenderiii. To admit to be right or trueWhen Steve goes into battle with Wanda Maximoff, he is tortured in ways he never expected.





	To Concede

**Author's Note:**

> The amazing artwork belongs to [Lasenby_Heathcote](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasenby_Heathcote). Thank you to my beta [Cat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rc1788/works)!

_Preface_

Steve curses the day Tony decided he should take up inventing.

They’d known Ultron would be difficult to defeat, but now that he’d recruited two super-powered twins spoiling for revenge against Stark, their chances have decreased to almost nothing. That wouldn’t stop them from trying, of course, but – though Steve would never admit it to the any of the others – he didn’t have a lot of faith in their odds, or particularly like their chances.

The silver-haired boy runs faster than anyone or anything Steve has ever seen. Or rather, hasn’t seen; he’s more of a blur in the light before he punches you in the face. And the girl… he gets the feeling they haven’t seen even half of what she can do. The red light she emits seems to have no limit. Steve’s watched the patterns of light she creates pick up his team members and throw them against the wall like ragdolls. He’s seen his fair share of human experiments – on some days he thinks it’s _more_ than his fair share, hell, he’s been one himself – but he’s never seen anything like either of them.

He ducks as a bullet of red comes racing towards him, soaring from the girl’s hand, shattering the glass pane he was standing in front of just seconds before. He raises his shield to deflect the shards flying in his direction. He only has to search the room for a moment before he spots the girl standing on the other side of the platform, a malicious, determined glare fixed on her face as she watches him. He throws the shield towards her, hoping to knock her down, but suddenly she’s gone.

There’s a blur of red mixed with silver moving across the platform, away from Steve rather than towards him, for once. He knows it won’t be long before the twins make a beeline towards him. He moves quickly to where his shield landed. So far, it hasn’t been of much use, but he’s never given up in the past and he’s sure as hell not going to start now.

He looks away from the twins, their attention temporarily focused on Natasha, and scans the temporary battlefield to find where he’s needed. Tony is soaring high above the rest of them, knocking Ultron into whatever he can find to loosen the metal casings surrounding the artificial intelligence inside. He watches as Thor swings Mjölnir at Ultron’s Sentries, smashing them to pieces. Clint stands on the balcony above them all, shooting down enemies at will, while Natasha fights off the ship’s crew.

The silver and red blur suddenly changes direction. The girl stands directly across the walkway from him again. Steve raises his shield, preparing to deflect any attacks she sends his way. Suddenly, he’s knocked off his feet. He falls onto his back. His head cracks against the hard metal of the catwalk and the shield skitters away from his hand. The brunt of the force came from somewhere near his chin. He stares up at the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling for a few seconds, blinking in surprise. He looks back to the catwalk in front of him just in time to see the silver blur retreating. He curses and gets to his feet. He spits blood, the split in his lip healing over almost immediately, and hefts himself to his feet.

The silver blur is replaced, abruptly, with the static form of the Pietro Maximoff. Steve watches as he’d yanked backwards by Mjölnir over the railing of the walkway. The sight would be almost comedic if it weren’t such a severe situation, and the Maximoffs weren’t so young. He lands with a crash that’s barely noticeable over the din of the battle. It’s nearly completely drowned out by Tony as he and Ultron burst through the side of the ship, uneven shards of metal falling from the sky onto the balcony, barely missing the rest of the team, as sunlight streams in through the hole.

Steve hears the tell-tale uneven clanking signifying the fast approach of the Sentries. He’s worked with them often enough before their data was corrupted to know. He turns to meet it head on, grabbing it in a chokehold, his shield digging into the metal exoskeleton. With one hit from a Mjölnir wielding Thor, the head comes off in a shower of sparks. He drops the drone to the floor, where the broken robotics continue to flicker, and turns to face the next enemy. He throws the shield into the nearest group of oncoming crew members before leaping over the railing onto the lower deck.

He finds Pietro Maximoff, lying, looking slightly disorientated, in a pile of displaced cargo crates. He bashes him with the shield to keep him from getting up. The main priority is to subdue the Maximoff twins, so that the way can be cleared to destroy Ultron, with as little injury to the pair as possible. If he can keep the boy down, it will make the job easier for the others. His original plan was to keep an eye on him until the battle was over, but the sound of gunfire ringing out means that he now has to reconsider his options.  
“Stay down, kid,” he grinds out, preparing to climb back up onto the walkway above, where most of the battle is still taking place.

He sees Thor standing on the balcony above, and squints. The ship has only been partially cleared; it’s too soon to be stationary.  
“Thor, status,’” he demands into the communicator. He watches as Thor knocks another of the ship’s crew onto the floor using his bare hands.  
“The girl tried to warp my mind,” he replies, a hint of something akin to amusement in his voice. “Take special care. I doubt a human could keep her at bay.” Steve begins to move towards where Thor is making his way through the crew, dodging and deflecting bullets as he goes. “Fortunately –” Thor’s words are cut off, suddenly, and the line between the two goes silent.

Steve stops still for a moment.  
“Thor?” he calls into the communicator again. “Thor, what’s your status?” he repeats. It’s then that he reaches the spot from where he can see Thor lying in an unconscious lump on the floor of the balcony. The sight sends a chill of dread through Steve. What could knock an Asgardian, the figures of myths and legends worshipped for centuries, down like that? And, perhaps more pressingly at that moment, what chance did the rest of the team, all wholly human, stand against it?  
“Thor is down. I think Wanda Maximoff might be responsible,” he states into the communicator.

Before he gets a chance to finish his report, one of the ship’s crew charges at him, trying to knock him off balance. Steve deals with him quickly, tossing him in the opposite direction. The move leaves him wide open, though, and he’s knocked off his feet by the Maximoff boy in a streak of silver and blue. He groans, pieces of broken piping digging into his back and arms where he lands. The Maximoff boy stands over him, glaring and panting angrily. He looks to the side for his shield and finds the girl hovering above him, the grim determination on her face marred by anger. It’s a unique form of misery, he thinks.

He watches as her hands twist around the floating red beams in fast, almost hypnotic movements. He knows there’s something wrong when the snaking strings of light appear to slow before his eyes. He tries to focus on the slender, pale fingers weaving the pattern in front of his eyes. It doesn’t work. Soon the movements slow into hazy, indistinct colours, blurring with their surroundings. His eyes begin to feel heavy, like they’re going to fall shut regardless of whether he gives them permission. Like the irresistible urge to blink. He tries again to make his eyes centre on the light, or the fingers, or the pattern. Anything. But it’s too late.

He feels his body cave in and his vision goes black.

_To grant as a privilege_

Steve has the feeling he’s forgetting something.

The ballroom is filled with soldiers just returned from the war. But, somehow, he feels like he should be somewhere else. Something tells him it’s urgent, like a live or die battle. He strains his mind to remember, but nothing comes to him. He turns in a slow circle, scanning the room. Laughter and music surround him. He flinches at the sound of bottles cracking open and the flashes of cameras. They remind him too much of the gunshots and the flashes in the sky after an explosion on the battlefield.

There’s a soldier at a table nearby with blood gushing from a wound in his chest. Steve flinches and blinks. That can’t be right. Another soldier attends to the wound with a handkerchief, and it’s then that he notices their laughter, and the bottle of red wine on the table. _It’s just wine._ It all reminds him too much of the past. Even now that he knows what it really is, it reminds him too much of being in battle. He remembers watching soldiers bleed out before his eyes, clutched in the arms of friends and medics. There was no laughter, then. Only tears and cries of anguish as lives slipped away in agony.

He shakes his head. It’s over now. It has been for a while. He starts. The war has just ended, he knows; it feels longer, somehow, he thinks. He shakes his head again, and a sense of displacement hits him.

He turns away from the soldiers and the wine that is far too much like blood, to look at the crowd. He can’t see anyone he knows. As he squints into the mass, though, they begin to appear one by one. Dum Dum. Gabe. Jim. Monty. Jacques. Two are missing. The most important two. Seeing the others with their sweethearts and families makes his heart ache. He wants the same thing so badly.

Something nags at the back of his mind. _There’s no_ reason _for them to be here. Any of them. He shouldn’t be either._

He turns again, moving slowly in a circle, to face the band on the stage. _Why_ shouldn’t they be here? Where else is _he_ supposed to be? Something’s wrong, he knows, but he can’t place what. He’s standing in the middle of the dancefloor, now. Couples twirl around him, brightly coloured dresses swirling and laughter bouncing off the walls of the room as they move in time to the bright jazz echoing through the space. He can’t remember moving between them.

If Peggy’s here, he thinks, she’ll find him. They’d made plans after all; a first dance as soon as the war ended. Instead of the joy he should solely feel at the thought, a sharp pang of pain shoots through his chest. He blinks. _Wrong._ The word propels through his thoughts, bouncing off the inside of his skull. He narrows his eyes, trying to place _why_ it’s wrong, but nothing comes to him.

A hand touches lightly to his shoulder, snapping him out of his train of thought. He flinches and turns to face its owner. Peggy smiles, a gorgeous smile, and Steve feels as though his heart is going to stop. The feeling isn’t a wholly joyful feeling and the same sensation nags at the back of his head. It’s almost painful. Her hand, like the rest of Peggy’s appearance, is deceptively dainty-looking. Though elegant, Peggy has kicked every member of the Howling Commandos ass at least twice. It’s one of the things Steve admires about her most.

Her hair falls in soft, dark curls around her face, her lips coloured the same bright red as always. A stylish royal blue dress hugs her figure, a flower adorning it. She smiles again, lips curving upwards in a beautiful, graceful expression, and the feeling of displacement vanishes.

“Are you ready for our dance?” He stares at her once the question leaves her lips. The brief break from the sensation ends. _Wrong._ The word echoes through his mind again. “The war’s over, Steve. We can go home. Imagine it,” she continues.

Steve begins to, swayed by her words into overlooking the sensation. Children. A house. A wedding. Spending the weekends with the other Commandos and their wives and children. It would be perfect. His daydream is shattered by what he thinks is screaming. He blinks. When his eyes open again, the hall is completely empty. He whirls around in confusion, a sense of panic overcoming him, as he tries to find someone, anyone. He’s only just been reunited with Peggy; he’s not ready to lose her yet.

The thought perplexes him. He can’t _remember_ losing her. They’d fought their final battle at the Hydra base in the mountains, the one that had won the war for the Allies. He’d defeated the Red Skull on a plane. The thought of the latter needles his memory. He landed the plane, didn’t he? There’s a flash across his vision. He remembers the ice. The cold. The tearful words exchanged with Peggy over the plane’s radio that were nowhere near good enough for goodbye. The plane crashed.

It’s then that it hits him. _It’s not real._

He can’t imagine it being a lie, though. He could even smell her perfume, the one she always wore, that was so out of place amongst the anger of the war room. But she’s gone. _She was never here._

The cavernous room is completely empty.

He closes his eyes and lets a tear slip down his face.

“Never thought we’d make it back, Stevie.”

Steve jolts at the familiar voice and whips around to face the source. Bucky stands before him, uniform sharp like their last day together in Brooklyn. His hair is combed back neatly underneath the slightly skewed hat. He looks handsome.

“It’s so good to see you.” He feels as though he’s forgetting something once again. He can’t remember what he was thinking about just seconds before. Something about the war, the room they’re standing in, a plane. He’s missed Bucky, but he can’t remember why. He can’t remember _why_ it’s so good to see him, why he’s missed him so much, even. He feels as though it’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other. But he can’t remember ever being apart from him, except the awful first few months of their deployments. He shakes the feeling off. It doesn’t matter. Bucky’s here, whatever he’s forgetting obviously isn’t that important.

Bucky chuckles.

“What’s wrong, Stevie? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” The benign smile on his face doesn’t sit well with the words. There’s nothing sinister about them, but when Steve closes his eyes, there’s a flash of silver and a red star behind them. _A ghost._ He tries to grasp the train of thought, but it disappears, fading into the back of his mind like mist. He can’t remember what the image means, or why it feels significant, even combined with the word. Why it fills him with such a sense of grief. He feels like he’s pulling at loose threads, though he doesn’t know where they should lead. He looks back up at Bucky, who’s still smiling down at him, and returns the expression. God, he’s missed him.

“It’s nothing, Buck,” he says, trying to reassure himself that his thoughts really don’t mean anything.

Steve goes to clap a hand against his shoulder, pull him in for a hug; hell, they’re alone, he might even kiss him, when he notices the horrifying truth. Bucky’s left arm is almost completely gone. Nothing from the elbow down, blood pouring from the mangled stump. A wave of sickness sweeps over Steve. They’re standing in a pool of blood.

He looks up at Bucky again. He’s still smiling; he hasn’t even noticed that anything’s wrong.

“Buck, your arm…” Steve doesn’t know how to tell him. Bucky just laughs. The blood begins to seep into their shoes, the puddle growing larger by the second.

“Well I did fall off a train, Stevie.”

The truth hits Steve like a punch to the gut. Bucky’s dead. A flash of silver and red behind his eyelids again. _No, not dead._ He’s alive. _The Winter Soldier._ A woman’s voice, whose name he can’t quite recall, echoes through his head. _He’s a ghost story._ And Peggy… She doesn’t remember him either. His worst nightmare and his longest held dream have been granted. It should be a privilege, but he can’t imagine anything more horrible.

He looks up from his blood-soaked shoes, to look at Bucky once more, but he’s gone. The ballroom is gone.

_To surrender_

In its place is the deck of the half ruined Helicarrier. Steve is no longer in his army uniform, but his Captain America one. He finds his shield on his arm, weighing it down. Bucky is standing across from him, the blank, murderous glare of the Winter Soldier on his face. The metal arm and red star are prominent against the black uniform. There’s not a glimpse of recognition in his eyes, nor a trace of the warm smile Steve had seen just a moment ago.

Pain washes over him. Somehow, this feels worse than what he’s just experienced, the memory of it fading from his mind even as he tries to cling on to it. Fighting Bucky was horrific the first time, he doesn’t know if he can do it again. What if he kills him? What if Bucky remembers their past after he’s killed Steve? He fights the urge to gag.

“We don’t have to do this, Buck,” he begs, voice cracked and pleading. Bucky’s eyes are cold and unflinching as he stares, unaffected by Steve’s words. “Not again,” he whispers, sounding broken even to his own ears. For a second, he almost thinks it works. Bucky stands on the other side of the walkway, staring, blankly and brutally, still. He doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch at the pleading on Steve’s face, nor at the desperation apparent in his voice.

Steve watches, almost panicking, as Bucky continues to stand stock still. Steve thinks for a minute that he’s considering his words, thinking the situation over. He’s not sure whether or not it’s wishful thinking, perhaps he’s even projecting his own experience from the last time they fought each other onto Bucky. He thinks he sees a flash of recognition in his eyes, almost like the fight on the bridge, a pause. But it’s gone almost as soon as Steve saw it. He wonders for a second whether it was really there, or if he’s starting to imagine things because of his despair at the situation. He only questions himself for a second before he gets his answer. Bucky starts to run.

As Bucky charges towards him, metal hand tightening into a fist, the other clutched around a pistol, that he comes to a realisation. He can’t do this. He can’t. He can’t hurt him again. He loves him too much, still. He thinks he always will.

He drops the shield – he watches it fall from his arm, through a smashed pane of glass until it disappears into the river he can’t actually see below – and lets Bucky push him to the ground. He sits on top of Steve, the weight of him crushing his chest as the silver fist hits him. Once. Twice. Again. He closes his eyes, hearing it crunch against his cheek. The pain from the punches shoots through his chest, like splinters of glass, rather than his face. The pain, more than Bucky’s weight, makes it hard for him to breathe. He feels like he’s going to suffocate from it all.

Then the sensation disappears.

_To admit to be true_

When he opens his eyes, he’s gazing up at the stars, his head pillowed on his arm. Bucky’s lying next to him. The metal arm is gone and Bucky looks happy, relaxed. It’s the first time he has been since before the war, and the train, and the Helicarrier. Steve can feel that his body is smaller; he feels skinny, his entire body heavy with illnesses, and the arm stretched out beside him, far too close to Bucky’s to really be considered platonic, is wiry and almost frail looking. He blinks, and can’t remember the comparisons he had been making just seconds earlier.

It’s hot, too hot for their crumby apartment. There’s a light breeze, but it doesn’t do much to stifle to the heat. They spend a lot of time up on the roof in the summer, sometimes they even sleep there.

Steve peers across at Bucky, now.  A wave of sadness washes over him accompanied by a sense of déjà vu. He thinks this has happened before. He frowns, slightly. He can’t understand what he’s feeling, what the wave of misery means. It’s not uncommon for them to spend large amounts of time on the roof, gazing down at Brooklyn during the hot weather. Something just _feels_ different about this evening, though, _significant._ Steve just can’t put his finger on what it is it.

He shifts slightly, a small discomfort in his back from the position he’s lying in. Bucky glances over at him, their hands brushing together, lightly, from the movements.

“Everything okay?” There’s a smile on his lips, but his eyes are worried. Steve has just recovered from a particularly awful fever. Bucky had been worried Steve was going to die for a while; they could barely afford the rent for their apartment, let alone a doctor or medicine. But, as always, Steve had soldiered through, and was back to being as healthy as Steve could be, with his long list of medical ailments.

“Fine. You shouldn’t worry about me so much, Buck,” Steve chides, gently. Bucky rolls his eyes.  
“I’ll do what I like, punk.” His tone is serious, but they’re both smiling. Steve stares at his lips for a moment. He’s drawn them a million times, but Bucky’s face never seems to look as good on paper as the original work of art. He’s beautiful, Steve thinks, more so than he has any right to be. He’s tried before not to think of Bucky in the same way he thinks of dames. He learnt a long time ago it doesn’t work.

He looks up to meet Bucky’s eyes and sees them tracing the outline of his own. _Huh,_ he thinks. He’d never imagined Bucky might actually _return_ his feelings. Anything he’d noticed over the years he attributed to his own imagination. He’s not so sure, now.

Bucky seems to catch himself, and looks up; piercing eyes the colour of the sky, meeting Steve’s. The smile briefly drops from his face, before reappearing a second later.

“What are you staring at?” His tone is teasing. Normally, Steve would tease back and brush it off as nothing. Something tells him that tonight isn’t normal, though. The sense of dislocation nagging at the back of his head agrees with him. There’s an edge to his voice, and a strange look in his eyes, one that Steve is familiar with. He’s seen it on his own face more than enough times to recognise it; Bucky thinks he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Steve usually sees it on his own face when he’s been staring at Bucky for too long, or lets his hand linger on his shoulder, or a hug lasts too long; always when he thinks that his feelings might have been discovered. He barely dares to let himself hope that Bucky is perhaps having a similar moment. He decides to take a gamble on that hope and he says words that he never thought he’d actually be brave enough to say.

“You. I don’t think I’m as good at drawing you as I thought I was. You’re much more handsome.” He says the words boldly, confidently, but his heart beats even more unevenly in his chest than usual. He stares at Bucky, his cheeks getting warmer the longer Bucky takes to respond. He worries for a minute that he thinks he might have messed everything up, opening his big mouth. He watches as Bucky stares at him, jaw hanging wide open, his cheeks red and his eyes wide. They flit between his eyes and his lips like he can’t believe what Steve’s just said.

Steve looks down, and notices Bucky doing the same thing, both their faces getting redder by the second. He decides to be bold, brave. He takes a chance. He moves his hand the few inches between his own and Bucky’s, letting it nudge Bucky’s palm. Bucky jumps, slightly, at the contact, and looks up at him again. Steve lets his fingers intertwine with Bucky’s.

“I love you,” Steve blurts out the words before he can think better of it. His heart beats hard against his rib cage, so hard he thinks he’s going to be sick. Time seems to slow for a few seconds on that rooftop. He knows that whatever the consequence is, his life is about to change forever, either for better, or for worse.

Steve quickly goes over all the possibilities in his head. Bucky could walk out of his life forever, thinking he’s disgusting, and they’ll never speak again. The thought alone sends a sharp pain through Steve’s chest. He’s never tried to imagine his life without Bucky in it, he finds, now that he’s trying, that he can’t, and that doing so is agonising. He dismisses the thought quickly; even if Bucky doesn’t feel the same, he’s never held bigoted prejudices. The thought brings his mind to the next possibility; Bucky doesn’t share his feelings, and things are never the same between them again. He has to repress a shudder at the thought of things being awkward between the two of them for the rest of their lives, or more likely, his life. They both know that with Steve’s poor health, it’s been a miracle he’s lived as long as he has. He doubts he’ll make thirty, though he’d never say that to Bucky. The outcome is almost as painful as the one before, he thinks, as he watches them growing apart in his mind’s eye. But, he thinks with a sort of grim hope, it might not turn out that way. If Bucky doesn’t share his feelings, things might not change at all. Their lives could play out, just as they’d always imagined; girls, – or maybe a boy for Steve, if he found someone he loved as much as he loves Bucky in this moment – children, working proper jobs and living next door to each other. Things wouldn’t necessarily have to change, Steve realises. The thought comforts him and, hesitantly, he lets himself consider the final scenario, and the one he’s hoping desperately for. Bucky loves him too. He doesn’t know how exactly things would change between them, but he wants them to. It’s what he wants most.

The words finally seem to snap Bucky out of the trance he’s been in for the past few minutes. He looks down at their joined hands and smiles, wider and brighter than Steve’s ever seen. His fingers itch for his sketchpad, his heart light again, the expression reassuring.

“I love you, too.”

Steve’s heart soars, beating somehow even more erratically than before. Bucky brings a spare hand up to cup his jaw, his fingers soft as they graze his cheek. Steve leans in and they meet in the middle.

Steve’s only kissed one other person before, Mary O’Donnell from elementary school when he was six or seven – the needling in the back of his mind says that’s not quite true, but he can’t place anyone else. He can’t remember it particularly well, but he knows it couldn’t have felt anything like this. Kissing Bucky is indescribable. Ecstasy doesn’t even begin to define it. He supposes it’s a good thing Bucky’s the writer and he’s the artist.

A thrill goes through his entire being as their lips move together. Bucky pulls back, his blue eyes, bright with affection and bliss, taking up the entirety of Steve’s line of sight.

“I love you,” Bucky repeats. Steve blinks. Suddenly Bucky’s gone. The joy he was experiencing just seconds before vanishes, an overwhelming misery taking its place. Despite the heat of the New York summer, Steve goes cold. Cold as the winter.

_Winter._

Déjà vu washes over him again. The Winter Soldier appears in front of him on the rooftop, metal arm glinting in the moonlight. Steve feels as though the world is falling out from under him. A great surge of nausea hits. _None of it exists._

He hurries to his feet, feeling himself grow a foot as he does, his entire body enlarging. It’s not 1938 and he can’t really be in Brooklyn, he realises. He stares at Bucky, fear of repeating the memory before rising in him, as the past two nightmares suddenly come flooding back to him. He blinks and the world goes black.

_Epilogue_

He wakes up on the Quinjet, in one of the rest areas. He’s alone, but he can see the others from where he sits. Tony is seated up front in the Pilot’s seat, looking dejected and exhausted. Natasha and Thor are visible in the other rest areas. Natasha is sitting on the edge of the makeshift bed, talking to Clint. Her face is blank, though his is distressed. Thor is still lying on the other bed, possibly still passed out from the Maximoff twins’ efforts.

Steve sits up, the world swirling slightly from the effort. He can’t remember being dizzy since before the Serum. He sits there, silently reliving his visions. One false memory and two corrupted, each as painful as the others. He misses them both so much. He _loves_ them both so much.

He lets the tears trace lines down his cheeks.

 


End file.
